Monument to the Alliance and Victory

At York on October 19, 1781, after a siege of nineteen days by 5500 American troops, 7000 French troops of the line, 3500 Virginia militia under General Thomas Nelson, and 36 French ships of war, Earl Cornwallis surrendered the British army at York and Gloucester, including 7251 officers and men, 840 seamen, 244 cannon, and 24 standards, to George Washington, the Comte de Rochambeau, and the Comte de Grasse. The Provisional Articles of Peace concluded November 30, 1782, and the definitive Treaty of Peace concluded September 3, 1783, declared that George III acknowledged the United States of America, naming the thirteen states, to be free, sovereign, and independent. The treaty concluded February 6, 1788, between the United States and Louis XVI declared that the essential and direct end of their defensive alliance was to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and absolute and unlimited independence of the United States in matters of government and commerce. The victory was regarded as the one by which the independence of the United States of America was achieved.

Virginia · United States